Medea Vs. Hedda Gabbler

Medea vs. Hedda Gabbler

Medea and Hedda Gabbler are two different plays, yet both have very similar motives in the end. Both women seek to control the destiny of the men in their lives. The reasons are not by the decision of either women, but by the hands of Fate, something out of their control. Both women are respectively different, with different degrees of action and success. Two women needing to control destiny bring two very different motives together.

Medea and Hedda have two very different reasons for desiring control over the destiny of their men's lives. Medea's desire for control over Jason, and the subsequent death of her children, is spawned by her unfair treatment and spurning by Jason, where as Hedda has very different reasons. Hedda has not been scorned by any one person really, but she is stuck in a man's world, as a woman, where she has absolutely no control, marking her desire to control the destiny of Eilert Lovborg. Medea is pushed by the force of fate, as if she has no control over her actions. She is a strong willed woman, doing what she must, coming out as the victor in the end. Hedda, however, comes out quite differently. Hedda's fear of scandal really prevents her from having any strong hold on the situation that will turn out successfully. This is proven in the end when Hedda commits suicide-she has lost control and is not strong enough to handle the ensuing scandal. Although out of the two actions, the worst seems to be Medea's, it is also Medea's actions that merit the most excuse as defense. She was having everything taken away from her, and she could not stop it, so she took the only action possible to make Jason understand how he had wronged her. Medea and Hedda, different in motive, actually are not all that different in their nature.

Medea and Hedda come from very different backgrounds, yet the way that they were raised can be compared with many similarities. Both Medea and Hedda were not raised as the proper woman should be, but rather, as women who are different, the exceptions. They each have been raised strong willed and independent, able to think by themselves and fight their own battles. The flaw, it seems, is that in both cases, they live in a man's world, a place that does not allow for their independence. Medea most definitely proves to be the stronger of the two, as she is victorious in her plight, killing her own children, a heart rendering decision for a mother. Hedda, however, is weak, mostly based on her fear of scandal. She kills herself in the end, to avoid scandal and leading a life that did not suit her. As for the quote, the line that sums up the situations of both Medea and Hedda is, "Nature forces each to violence as the only means of escape." Such is explained by the women's wills and characters, neither were able to live unless they had made some profound effect on others and gained a certain respect in doing so. Both are dreadfully out of place in their societies, their flaws and nature itself driving them to horrible violence.

In both cases, the men greatly fail to live up to the standards of the women's expectations. It seems, that Jason, however, is the most shameful of the two. It is Jason who abandons Medea after she loves him and gives him her all, and then her proceeds to have her driven from town, along with their sons. Jason's actions are pure cowardice and fear of Medea, but even sadder yet is that he is blind to all